6 ms·

Galling can go both ways. Why is it that philosophists have gone hundreds or thousands of years thinking on a problem and produced no tangible results and yet S

by titzer 6y ago

Galling can go both ways. Why is it that philosophists have gone hundreds or thousands of years thinking on a problem and produced no tangible results and yet Science put a man on the moon? Reproducibility.

keiferski 6y ago
No tangible results? You live in a world shaped entirely by political philosophy, which itself is almost inseparable from philosophy writ large historically. The modern political Western world is entirely built on Kantian ideals.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  I think the biggest problem is the hubris to known knowledge. One thing I liked about the author was the acknowledgment that Freud made mistakes, but shouldn't be 100% dismissed either. I like relating this to modern atom theory. How vital is the understanding of electrons to atoms these days? It's borderline impossible to imagine how atoms work without knowing anything about electrons. Dalton developed modern atom theory in 1804. Electrons weren't discovered until the 1890s. 90 years of people probably saying, "it's impossible to get tangible results from testing atoms". Freud's theories are almost 100 years old now. We've come a long way... but how more advanced is atomic theory an extra 100 years after electrons were discovered? We are still stupid when it comes to psychology, thus unable to really make tangible results... yet. The faster that concept is respected, I truly think the faster advancements can be made because people won't get hung up on bad pop science declarations from innocent studies that are doing to their best to just discover some grain of truth.
  - SubiculumCode 6y ago
    Freud probably set us back 100 years. So much wasted effort spent pursuing a charlatan's musings.
    - NoOneNew 6y ago
      You're right, his work helped stop further vital research into wandering uterus and methods to cure women's tendencies to hysteria and insurrection, like lobotomies. Oh, the good ol' days. Again, he wasn't perfect by any stretch, but his work and push of psychoanalysis is the seed to our current forms of therapy. Yes, modern therapy still isnt perfect for war and trauma induced PTSD but holy shit it's better than cranking up the voltmeter on someone, pumping them full of cocaine and tobacco and snakeoil, or just locking them up in a padded room. This doesn't include some of the archaic religious torture practices some places of the world still utilize to this day. The dude was on the right track compared to the rest of his time. Give credit where credit is due. It's not like you invented the transistor. We all stand on someone else's shoulders. Hindsight is a whole hell of a lot easier than foresight. Again, we dont think Dalton set us back in atomic theory since he was the pioneer. Why the hate for any other pioneer then?
      - SubiculumCode 6y ago
        If he was such a pioneer of psychology and psychiatry, why is Freud pointedly ignored in Psychology and Psychiatry departments? And seriously, was the idea of subconscious motivations that innovative for his time?
pfortuny 6y ago
What is a result? Honestly. It is not solutions what Philosophers seek. Mostly they pose questions. The problem with Science is that it just answers them. And Scientist deem that sufficient. The hard thing is to tackle questions which have only personal answers. Universal ones are easy.
endisneigh 6y ago
What do you mean no tangible results? Pretty much everything around is derived from some philosophical idea that's been normalized throughout the population.
mdeck_ 6y ago
By definition philosophy has come to refer to the study of things that cannot be resolved by empirical inquiry. So, every time human advancements have ACTUALLY allowed us to answer a question, it ceases to be the realm of philosophy. For instance, Plato and other Ancient Greek philosophers theorized about the basic building blocks of matter—what their shapes and natures were. That question has become one of physics. That’s why philosophy is referred to as the Mother of the Sciences. This hardly makes philosophy worthy of your description as lacking “tangible results.”
evv555 6y ago
Progression of mathematics and Platonic ontologies are closely intertwined.
- nescioquid 6y ago
  Your comment piques my interest, and I'd like to know more. My first thought was about the Timaeus (geometrical structures of matter/elements), but I haven't read any treatments about Plato's theory of forms and the development of mathematics.
  - evv555 6y ago
    The cliffnotes version is "plato's forms/ideas" are a first attempt at articulating what abstractions are. Progression of Math is a chain of ideas leading back to these early thoughts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Platonism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Plat...
tablespoon 6y ago
> Galling can go both ways. Why is it that philosophists have gone hundreds or thousands of years thinking on a problem and produced no tangible results and yet Science put a man on the moon? Reproducibility. Someone should probably let you know that science is a subset of philosophy (or "philosophism" as you seem to think it's called).
- whatshisface 6y ago
  Although true, that's like defending all human speech by saying that philosophy is a subset of all human speech, which itself has science as a subset.
  - tablespoon 6y ago
    > Although true, that's like defending all human speech by saying that philosophy is a subset of all human speech, which itself has science as a subset. Not really. To use your analogy a bit, the GGP was basically rejecting human language in favor of English on account of it being so wonderful that English-speakers visited the moon. It's nonsense. If you reject philosophy, you reject science.
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      >If you reject philosophy, you reject science. It doesn't take that much charity to interpret that what the original poster was saying as, "I reject the subset of philosophy that is not science, on the grounds that the subset which is science has all of the value," a legitimate position at least which is not tautologically false. I guess the reason why one thing being good could make another thing bad would be that time spent using nonscientific philosophical techniques to answer questions incurs an opportunity cost, that you are not using scientific techniques to answer them. Or even that trying to answer questions that scientific techniques can't solve incurs an opportunity cost, that you could be answering other questions that you had a chance at solving. (That would be a consistent belief if you thought that nonscientific thought couldn't make progress on questions, even if you conceded that scientific techniques could not make progress on all questions.)
omginternets 6y ago
Yours is literally a philosophical question. You are doing philosophy. Surely you see the relevance and importance of your own question... More to the point, most of what you hold dear is precisely philosophical in nature. Let us list but two, which I draw directly from your comment: 1. The value of putting a man on the moon 2. The superior (epistemological!) quality of scientific knowledge. That last one bears repeating. The entire reason you think that you think science is better than philosophy is because of a philosophical stance. You are manifestly an empiricist, albeit one who does not understand empiricism and its rational context very well. Respectfully, I leave you with the following quote by Gordan Fee: Before you can say, ‘I disagree,’ you must be able to say, ‘I understand.’ It is axiomatic that before you level criticism you should be able to state an author’s position in terms that he or she would find acceptable. Your position betrays an ignorance of philosophy that would appall history's greatest scientists.
- titzer 6y ago
  > Your position betrays an ignorance of philosophy And your entire reply rests on misreading of my comment; note that I said "a problem" not "all problems". There are many problems that philosophists have made absolutely no progress on in centuries or millenia because on those narrow questions the dialog is horribly imprecise and does not give rise to reproducible, testable things. Almost everyone who replied to me assumed that I meant all of philosophy is useless from basically missing the "a" word in my comment.
  - omginternets 6y ago
    That's fair. Please accept my apology for this oversight. Nevertheless, it makes your comparison with "putting a man on the moon" very puzzling. Why not compare this great achievement of science with a great achievement of philosophy? Moreover, you place science and philosophy in opposition with each other, yet science is exactly a subset of philosophy. And while you might point to the higher epistemological quality of empiricism (as opposed to, say, metaphysics), you would have to concede that science is also tackling easier questions by a significant margin, precisely because they can be apprehended through epistemologically-objective observation. Given the above, the charitable interpretation remains ignorance. One might even qualify it as "galling".

by titzer 6y ago

keiferski 6y ago

No tangible results? You live in a world shaped entirely by political philosophy, which itself is almost inseparable from philosophy writ large historically. The modern political Western world is entirely built on Kantian ideals.

NoOneNew 6y ago
I think the biggest problem is the hubris to known knowledge. One thing I liked about the author was the acknowledgment that Freud made mistakes, but shouldn't be 100% dismissed either. I like relating this to modern atom theory. How vital is the understanding of electrons to atoms these days? It's borderline impossible to imagine how atoms work without knowing anything about electrons. Dalton developed modern atom theory in 1804. Electrons weren't discovered until the 1890s. 90 years of people probably saying, "it's impossible to get tangible results from testing atoms". Freud's theories are almost 100 years old now. We've come a long way... but how more advanced is atomic theory an extra 100 years after electrons were discovered? We are still stupid when it comes to psychology, thus unable to really make tangible results... yet. The faster that concept is respected, I truly think the faster advancements can be made because people won't get hung up on bad pop science declarations from innocent studies that are doing to their best to just discover some grain of truth.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  Freud probably set us back 100 years. So much wasted effort spent pursuing a charlatan's musings.
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    You're right, his work helped stop further vital research into wandering uterus and methods to cure women's tendencies to hysteria and insurrection, like lobotomies. Oh, the good ol' days. Again, he wasn't perfect by any stretch, but his work and push of psychoanalysis is the seed to our current forms of therapy. Yes, modern therapy still isnt perfect for war and trauma induced PTSD but holy shit it's better than cranking up the voltmeter on someone, pumping them full of cocaine and tobacco and snakeoil, or just locking them up in a padded room. This doesn't include some of the archaic religious torture practices some places of the world still utilize to this day. The dude was on the right track compared to the rest of his time. Give credit where credit is due. It's not like you invented the transistor. We all stand on someone else's shoulders. Hindsight is a whole hell of a lot easier than foresight. Again, we dont think Dalton set us back in atomic theory since he was the pioneer. Why the hate for any other pioneer then?
    - SubiculumCode 6y ago
      If he was such a pioneer of psychology and psychiatry, why is Freud pointedly ignored in Psychology and Psychiatry departments? And seriously, was the idea of subconscious motivations that innovative for his time?

pfortuny 6y ago

What is a result? Honestly. It is not solutions what Philosophers seek. Mostly they pose questions. The problem with Science is that it just answers them. And Scientist deem that sufficient. The hard thing is to tackle questions which have only personal answers. Universal ones are easy.

endisneigh 6y ago

What do you mean no tangible results? Pretty much everything around is derived from some philosophical idea that's been normalized throughout the population.

mdeck_ 6y ago

By definition philosophy has come to refer to the study of things that cannot be resolved by empirical inquiry. So, every time human advancements have ACTUALLY allowed us to answer a question, it ceases to be the realm of philosophy. For instance, Plato and other Ancient Greek philosophers theorized about the basic building blocks of matter—what their shapes and natures were. That question has become one of physics. That’s why philosophy is referred to as the Mother of the Sciences. This hardly makes philosophy worthy of your description as lacking “tangible results.”

evv555 6y ago

Progression of mathematics and Platonic ontologies are closely intertwined.

nescioquid 6y ago
Your comment piques my interest, and I'd like to know more. My first thought was about the Timaeus (geometrical structures of matter/elements), but I haven't read any treatments about Plato's theory of forms and the development of mathematics.
- evv555 6y ago
  The cliffnotes version is "plato's forms/ideas" are a first attempt at articulating what abstractions are. Progression of Math is a chain of ideas leading back to these early thoughts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Platonism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Plat...

tablespoon 6y ago

> Galling can go both ways. Why is it that philosophists have gone hundreds or thousands of years thinking on a problem and produced no tangible results and yet Science put a man on the moon? Reproducibility. Someone should probably let you know that science is a subset of philosophy (or "philosophism" as you seem to think it's called).

whatshisface 6y ago
Although true, that's like defending all human speech by saying that philosophy is a subset of all human speech, which itself has science as a subset.
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > Although true, that's like defending all human speech by saying that philosophy is a subset of all human speech, which itself has science as a subset. Not really. To use your analogy a bit, the GGP was basically rejecting human language in favor of English on account of it being so wonderful that English-speakers visited the moon. It's nonsense. If you reject philosophy, you reject science.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    >If you reject philosophy, you reject science. It doesn't take that much charity to interpret that what the original poster was saying as, "I reject the subset of philosophy that is not science, on the grounds that the subset which is science has all of the value," a legitimate position at least which is not tautologically false. I guess the reason why one thing being good could make another thing bad would be that time spent using nonscientific philosophical techniques to answer questions incurs an opportunity cost, that you are not using scientific techniques to answer them. Or even that trying to answer questions that scientific techniques can't solve incurs an opportunity cost, that you could be answering other questions that you had a chance at solving. (That would be a consistent belief if you thought that nonscientific thought couldn't make progress on questions, even if you conceded that scientific techniques could not make progress on all questions.)

omginternets 6y ago

Yours is literally a philosophical question. You are doing philosophy. Surely you see the relevance and importance of your own question... More to the point, most of what you hold dear is precisely philosophical in nature. Let us list but two, which I draw directly from your comment: 1. The value of putting a man on the moon 2. The superior (epistemological!) quality of scientific knowledge. That last one bears repeating. The entire reason you think that you think science is better than philosophy is because of a philosophical stance. You are manifestly an empiricist, albeit one who does not understand empiricism and its rational context very well. Respectfully, I leave you with the following quote by Gordan Fee: Before you can say, ‘I disagree,’ you must be able to say, ‘I understand.’ It is axiomatic that before you level criticism you should be able to state an author’s position in terms that he or she would find acceptable. Your position betrays an ignorance of philosophy that would appall history's greatest scientists.

titzer 6y ago
> Your position betrays an ignorance of philosophy And your entire reply rests on misreading of my comment; note that I said "a problem" not "all problems". There are many problems that philosophists have made absolutely no progress on in centuries or millenia because on those narrow questions the dialog is horribly imprecise and does not give rise to reproducible, testable things. Almost everyone who replied to me assumed that I meant all of philosophy is useless from basically missing the "a" word in my comment.
- omginternets 6y ago
  That's fair. Please accept my apology for this oversight. Nevertheless, it makes your comparison with "putting a man on the moon" very puzzling. Why not compare this great achievement of science with a great achievement of philosophy? Moreover, you place science and philosophy in opposition with each other, yet science is exactly a subset of philosophy. And while you might point to the higher epistemological quality of empiricism (as opposed to, say, metaphysics), you would have to concede that science is also tackling easier questions by a significant margin, precisely because they can be apprehended through epistemologically-objective observation. Given the above, the charitable interpretation remains ignorance. One might even qualify it as "galling".